“It means the case is a lot better,” the county’s chief appellate attorney, Jerrold Schrotenboer, said today. “We got a confession we can use now.”

White’s lawyer, Robert Gaecke, could appeal the ruling to the Michigan Supreme Court.

Gaecke said he has to speak with White about what he wishes to do.

White's trial has been on hold while lawyers waited for the Court of Appeals' opinion. A Supreme Court review could further delay the proceeding.

White, 18, is accused of shooting to death Benjamin Willard, 21, on July 6, 2010, in an alley between Francis Street and Chittock Avenue in Jackson.

“I didn’t even mean for it to happen like that. It was a complete accident,” White told Jackson Police Detective Brett Stiles after his July 9 arrest.

“I know that I didn’t mean to do it. I guarantee that. I know I didn’t mean to do it,” he further told the detective.

Wilson found White’s statement was collected in violation of a Supreme Court ruling in Miranda v. Arizona requiring officers to end interrogations if suspects do not waive their rights to remain silent and have an attorney present.

White had told Stiles he would neither sign a waiver of his rights nor talk to the officer. Stiles, however, went on to tell White, “I’m not asking you questions. I’m just telling you. I hope that the gun is in a place where nobody can get a hold of it and nobody else can get hurt by it, OK?”

White responded with his incriminating statement, according to court records.

Stiles was not interrogating White, or subjecting him to the “functional equivalent” of questioning, the higher court found.

“We conclude that Detective Stiles should not have known that defendant would suddenly make a self-incriminating statement in response to his one remark,” judges Christopher M. Murray and Kurtis T. Wilder decided.

In a dissenting opinion, Judge Douglas B. Shapiro found Stiles did question White and Gaecke agreed with Shapiro's conclusion.

"The detective’s preface that he was 'not asking questions' is belied by the fact that he asked defendant a question. To permit officers to ask direct questions of defendants so long as they preface it with 'I’m not asking you any questions, but...' is to make a mockery of Miranda," Shapiro wrote.

The majority opinion was based on a 1980 decision of the Supreme Court in Rhode Island v. Innis.

In that case, two officers were discussing, in the suspect's presence, the possible danger of children getting their hands on a gun allegedly used in an armed robbery. The suspect had said he wanted to speak with a lawyer, but after hearing the discussion, he led police to the shotgun. The officers' actions were not an interrogation in violation of the man’s rights under Miranda, justices ruled.

The circumstances in White's case are distinguishable from the older case, Gaecke said. Stiles spoke directly to White in an interrogation room. The two officers in the armed robbery spoke to each other as the suspect rode in the back seat of a police vehicle.